INTERNATIONAL HERALD TRIBUNE
Sunday, April 15, 2007
EDITORIAL
Good signs from China
The success of any global system to reduce greenhouse gases depends
on many factors, but two are paramount. One is U.S. leadership. The
other is China's full participation. President George W. Bush still
refuses to lead. But there is mounting pressure for action from
cities, states and Congress, as well as the recent Supreme Court
decision that all but ordered the administration to begin regulating
greenhouse gases. And for the first time, there are some modestly
encouraging signs from China.
During a visit to Tokyo last week, China's Premier Wen Jiabao
announced that his country was prepared take part in negotiations on
a new agreement limiting global warming emissions, to replace the
Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. China is not subject to the
accord's binding emissions targets, but its commitment to talk raises
the first real hope that it may be open to the idea.
Japan and China also agreed to work together to reduce emissions.
Both sides have strong economic motives for doing so. Japan, already
one of the world's most energy-efficient countries, is having a hard
time further reducing its emissions as required under the Kyoto
agreement. It can earn credits to help meet its obligations by
investing in clean-energy projects in developing countries like
China, which in turn will help China's economy and give it access to
new technologies. China may be starting to understand that global
warming poses a real danger, especially to its food supply and
coastal cities.
Most outsiders agree that China, which produces 18 percent of the
world's carbon dioxide emissions, will never come to grips with the
problem until it imposes mandatory limits similar to those called for
by Kyoto. Nearly every industrialized nation except the United States
has accepted those limits. But mandatory caps on emissions from power
plants and other industrial sources would be strong and costly
medicine.
China is unlikely to swallow that medicine as long as the United
States doesn't do so as well, thus using America as a cover for
inaction just as Bush is using China's inaction to excuse his own.
Congress could help break that stalemate by approving mandatory
limits for the United States.
Copyright © 2007 The International Herald Tribune | www.iht.com
posted to ClimateConcern 16/04/07
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